Paper trades

I've been reading God's Undertaker, by John C. Lennox, a book arguing for "intelligent causation" - the idea that the universe and life are too irreducibly complex to have arisen by chance. Lennox, a professor of mathematics at Oxford who has debated Richard Dawkins, makes a powerful case that information lies at the heart of life, and that this information (epitomized by, but not restricted to, the instructions encoded in DNA) cannot be explained by natural processes.

If this is true (and I strongly suspect that it is), it naturally raises the question of how this "intelligent causation" could actually be brought about. The notion of God as a chemist, reaching down with his mighty hand to splice the correct amino acids into the desired proteins, is hardly intellectually satisfying.

One approach that occurs to me is suggested by the idea of pure information underlying the physical world, a notion that we've played with before. We could imagine this informational matrix as something akin to a giant information processing system - a vast database, with the numbers constantly being crunched by algorithms. By analogy, think of the whole shebang as a computer run by a program; the numbers are processed in the background, between screen refreshes; changes in the informational content would be reflected in each new refresh, just as changes dictated by a computer program are seen in new combinations of pixels on the screen.

How, then, would intelligent causation manifest itself in such a system? Let's assume there is a problem to be solved - the emergence of life from nonliving antecedents. A great deal of evidence and statistical analysis suggests that natural processes and chance are inadequate to explain this development, because there simply is not enough time in the universe to play out all the scenarios necessary for the construction of even one protein by random combination of amino acids - let alone the dozens or hundreds of proteins needed for a functioning cell, not to mention the complexly encoded DNA molecules that run the cell itself.

So did God just snap his fingers and say, "Let there be life"? Or can we look at the issue from a slightly different perspective?

Suppose that in the timeless interval between screen refreshes, the information matrix is able to sketch out every possible scenario for a given batch of amino acids. Any outcome with a nonzero probability is included in a vast array of potentialities, ramifying in all directions. Far more than 99.999% of these pathways do not lead to a functioning protein. But somewhere in the cloud of potentia - somewhere in the dizzying web of possible paths - there is at least one pathway that does produce a protein.

Particle tracks in an accelerator - possibly a way to visualize the pathways extending from a single point.

If an intelligent agent - a super-mind acting behind the scenes - could select that one outcome out of all the others, and (in effect) collapse the wave function along that particular pathway, then the necessary steps would be actualized or manifested in the physical world, and the protein would come into existence.

The same procedure could be used to produce other proteins and even the desired encoding of a DNA molecule - by allowing every scenario to play out in virtual reality (behind the scenes) and then intelligently selecting the one scenario in every case that would accomplish the objective.

Of course, this presupposes that there is an objective - a goal - and that there is a consciousness capable of holding this objective in mind and making the necessary selections. Both premises take us very far from naturalism or materialism, and very far from mainstream science as it's practiced today. Whether this is a feature or a bug depends on one's personal worldview.

It might be objected that the whole procedure is unnecessary, since if the mind in question already knows what it wants, why should it need to spin out a multiplicity of scenarios, most of which are dead ends? But I'm suggesting that while the mind may know its goal, it may not know the best way to get there. It may have to let a million pathways take temporary shape in order to find, by hit and miss, the one pathway that will actually work. In other words, the mind we're talking about may be very, very smart, but not omniscient. Though its resources and capabilities are vastly greater than ours, it may still have to grope its way to the best answer to a given problem.

The same idea would apply, naturally, to macroevolutionary change - not to microevolution (relatively trivial changes in coloration, size, resistance to antibiotics, etc.), but major alterations significant enough to bring about new species.

Perhaps most of the time nature is stuck in a kind of stasis, with small mutations occurring and mostly being weeded out or producing temporary, minor changes and often reverting to the mean. But if a species comes under serious pressure and a more dramatic response is called for, perhaps once again the information-processing program starts spinning out pathways to new features and new modalities. Any major change will involve a large number of genetic mutations and probably other alterations as well, all occurring simultaneously or at least in a compressed time frame. The odds of this happening are incredibly remote, but they may not be zero. Somewhere in the cloud of ramifying potentialities, there may be one scenario that gets the endangered population where it needs to go. If the intelligence working behind the scenes identifies and selects that pathway, no matter how unlikely it may be, then that is the one that will manifest. It may still take many generations; there may be no shortcut that allows for the emergence of a new species overnight; it may be imperfect, requiring awkward compromises or the retention of vestigial or superfluous features; and in many cases there may be no viable path, and the population will become extinct. Still, if a path can be selected, it will be the most efficient path possible, one so improbable that it would almost never actualize if left to chance alone.

Now, I know that natural selection involves more than chance; but in mainstream science the genetic mutations on which natural selection operates are attributed entirely to chance. Any suggestion that these mutations are guided or directed toward a goal, or brought into being by an intentional agency, would be rejected out of hand as superstition and teleology. Still, that's what I'm suggesting: that in periods of acute distress, when a population must change radically or perish, an intelligent agent behind the scenes selects from among all possible mutations (and other adaptations) that could, in principle, occur - all mutations with a nonzero probability, even if that probability is vanishingly small - and then selects whatever pathway allows for the most promising set of mutations in the shortest available time.

Some storyline like this may perhaps help to visualize how intelligent causation, using the underlying information matrix, could select outcomes that allow for the origin and macroevolution of life, without the need for miracles (only for extremely improbable events), violations of natural law, or overt (as opposed to covert, behind-the-scenes) divine intervention.

Incidentally, something similar could be imagined for the intelligent causation of the universe itself - if we suppose that every possible scenario proceeding from the Big Bang could be spun out in virtual terms, with the scenario best suited to produce a stable, complex, habitable universe being selected and manifested.

In a way, it's like trading stocks in a virtual trading environment - so-called "paper trades." You can buy and sell as many stocks as you like and play out any scenario that interests you, without risking any money, because the trades are not real. In this way you can gain a great deal of trading experience before ever investing a cent.

Einstein said that God does not play dice with the universe. Maybe not. But who knows? He might make paper trades.

Comments

Time runs infinitely backwards and forwards and there is or was plenty of time for all scenarios to exist. It's not like Chopped on the Food Channel where the clock runs out and there is no more time for the Chef contestants to finish their dish or forget an ingredient from the basket. There is always plenty of time to make sure all the ingredients in the basket are included on the plate.

I have read several NDEs that essentially say the Universe was made for life and that they met other beings or souls on the other side that were from different planets. As to whether these souls had been embodied in a human like body or not wasn't mentioned.

If Whales, dolphins, porpoises, apes, monkeys, elephants, parrots, etc. are conscious and sentient then we can assume that they also have souls and that after we cross over we will be able to have intelligent conversations with them just like we do with other humans.

But my main point being that if the Universe was made or created for life, and that everything that happens happens for a reason, then I think that the Creator probably had a clear vision in mind as to what it wanted to include in the story.

And as far as the really bad horrifying stuff, which seems to be a never ending bone of contention, it is necessary for the soul to learn what it was it came here to learn, and after we cross back over into heaven we will look back on this life like it was just a bad dream, but a dream where we learned what separation is, what time and space looked and felt like, and what it was like to be inside a body and control that body.

And the alternative might be to be pure consciousness with no thought, existing everywhere at the same time, filling every nook and cranny of the Universe, thinking and feeling nothing because you don't have a clue what separation is. You exist, but only as pure consciousness but have never experienced anything so you have no starting point.

Here is a pretty good video with a population geneticist explaining why there is a problem making a leap from micro-evolution (think adaptation, Galapagos finches, etc.) to macro-evolution (mutations causing entirely new critters to emerge). Very straightforward.

"...the numbers are processed in the background, between screen refreshes;.."

Michael

Excellent thoughts! I never considered the time between “screen refreshes” but it could actually run to eternity. Plenty of time to inject adjustments into a program. Also your thoughts on “God” being not omniscient is right on. We must consider the possibility that “God” may have been in a process of “booting” himself into self awareness before and during our development, we may be, in fact, needed items in the development of God’s self awareness.

I have also just finished “God’s Undertaker”. It is stunning how unlikely it is that chance was responsible for this universe and the life within it. My only problem with the book is that Lennox is a Christian apologist, and injects Jesus as the ultimate miracle into his thinking. Don’t get me wrong, I myself am a Christian, I just get a little leery of “true believers” on either side of the issues. I do think Lennox is thinking a little bit clearer than Dawkins and his friends though.

No One,
Thanks for the link to the YouTube lecture by Dr. Giertych. It was very interesting, well presented and thought-out.

As a biologist I have been interested in evolutionary theory for many years and have done small experiments in genetics with plants, birds and fish. In spite of my artificial selection, the offspring always reverted to the mean when allowed to mix back with other populations.

As I watch the birds at the feeding station outside my kitchen window, I am amazed at the variety or color and design exhibited in the many birds that visit and find it difficult to conjecture an explanation of that variety based upon current evolutionary theories. I don't understand why all birds are not just a grey-brown color or grey-green color. It seems to me that those would be the most advantageous and protective against predation. Why evolution should have produced a red Cardinal, Blue-Jay, Red-Bellied Woodpecker, Yellow Finch etc. etc. is difficult to explain unless we believe that female birds have an appreciation for attractive males (that presumes that female birds do in fact have likes and dislikes and subjectively make choices based on those likes and dislikes which is a whole 'nother thing) and that this preference over-rides everything else in evolution.

I like to think that the form and color of birds had a spiritual designer---perhaps many---who as part of their activity in another reality design birds for the earth and other planets. Sometimes I can't help looking at the variety of birds and think that that designer not only had a great sense of style but also a sense of humor! - AOD

This post of Michael's piqued my interest and, as I had no meetings today, I spent the day listening to a host of geneticists on youtube explaining that the more we learn about genetics, the less plausible the random mutation theory appears to be.

In fact, one guy even advanced a perspective similar to Michael's; that genes are acting much like a super computer and that something (intelligent consciousness?) can cause the genes to work off new models. This background intelligent programming, not mutations, is what is responsible for speciation.

The problem is that science so strenuously insisted on the random mutation theory as being THE ANSWER that they are finding it difficult to back off and admit they were wrong. That and the specter of God.

The bright side is that there appears to be a set of agnostic geneticists that go where the evidence points them; even if that means some kind of intelligence behind the design.

But yeah, the math models that can now be built to simulate genetics in evolution have pretty much destroyed the random mutation theory. It's just not mathematically possible to achieve the genetic diversity and complexity that we have via randomness.

This hypothesis is similar to the idea of John Wheller of the participatory universe: in the beginning the universe was only a quantum potential, a superposition of all possible states. The first potential sentient beings of the one of the many timelines acted retrospectively about their past to perform the timeline leading to their appearance: so sentient beings themselves would ensure the existence of the universe in a time loop!

No One,
I have had a chance to look at the other YouTube videos accompanying the one you cited above and I think that many of them are exceptional. What a great resource of information about alternative evolution theory and the origin of life. I especially found this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gjvuwne0RrE by Trey Smith to be mind-blowing. It is very intense and perhaps one would need to view it in two sittings. but, "What a presentation!" The guy is outstanding! I recommend it, especially to those who have beliefs regarding an information matrix as the basis for reality. Not everyone would be able to tolerate Mr. Smith's presentation style and the information he provides but, I am guessing that many of those who frequent this site would find it very thought-provoking.- AOD

Bruce (but not Bruce Siegel - a different Bruce) wrote, "Obviously, you have no concept of infinity."

I would say that there are almost infinitely many pathways that can be spun out between screen refreshes. But in the spacetime universe (the universe as rendered in dimensional, tangible objects) there is no infinity. It would be logically impossible.

Michael,
I am glad to hear that in your view "in the spacetime universe . . . there is no infinity." I agree! I have thought that the universe cannot be infinite because 'space' must be in a 'place'. Just think about it; space cannot go on forever and ever. In a way, space is a physical negative capable of being filled with something (a positive). Space at some point must merge into something non-physical e.g., energy. I am not smart enough to explain this but I can't get my mind around infinite space because from my vantage point it is part of the three-dimensional universe.

Blind chance can't explain the suitable evolution of the universe, life, and consciousness. But you don't necessarily have to imagine the "busy divine fingers" scenario of a deity constantly intervening locally to make sure there are favorable outcomes all over the universe. There's another possibility -- that the universe has been programmed for sucess from the
beginning. So all across the universe, things happen that are favorable to the eventual appearance of order, life, and consciousness, things that would never occur by blind chance alone. The universe reaches goals it was programmed to reach. Such a concept requires more than just the amorphous idea of information, but the actual idea of cosmic programming, and the idea that the universe has a hidden data infrastructure and computing infrastructure not yet discovered. Yes that is teleology, which is unreasonably excluded by some modern scientists, given that there is massive evidence for it. See my site www.programmedcosmos.blogspot.com for a series of posts that advance these ideas.

Michael, per Zeno's paradox there are no physical infinities or movement would be impossible. Per your speculation about the Brane and Bulk block Universe in which we live we live I think you are correct. Per the premise of "Interstellar", the movie, I think we are beneficiaries and recipients of They who take care of us and guide our evolution on an Intelligent Design basis.

Some of you may be familiar with Joan Grant, and her claims of remembering several previous lifetimes, some of which she then wrote and published as (originally, before claiming they were her remembered reincarnations) historical novels?

It's been years since I read some of her other books so I don't know if I remember this correctly, but I think she somewhere talked about starting as embodied in stones, and progressing from there to more and more complex lifeforms, always striving for something like expressing what the soul was on this material plane, and towards more interaction with the environment here. (This may have been in either Far Memory or Many Lifetimes)

Makes sense. If a soul came here and existed for a while as a mineral, or stone, there would not be much it could do. Microbes, molds, plants, animals... from very limited observations of the environment and very coded interaction with it towards more freedom of both.

Perhaps there is a master planner, but maybe souls, whatever they are, parts of the whole or more independent, are working as some sort of subcontractors here too. Trying to create something which gives them more control over what they do here.

"per Zeno's paradox there are no physical infinities or movement would be impossible."

One nice thing about the information matrix conjecture is that it takes care of Zeno's paradox. The arrow in flight is reduced to a series of still "pictures," and the impression of movement is created by each new screen refresh, in which the arrow is advanced by another small amount. (Just as the moving images on a computer screen are actually just static arrangements of pixels that are slightly altered with each refresh.) Time in this model is not infinitely divisible; no interval of time can be shorter than Planck time. So Zeno's paradox, which depends on infinitely divisible time and the apparent contradiction of the arrow being both motionless and in motion, can be resolved.

If Zeno had owned a laptop, he might have worked this out for himself. :-)

Great post Michael, and I too got a lot out of God’s Undertaker. Its arguments, and the YouTube material flagged up by No One, demonstrate how acute a problem this issue has now become for those who maintain that science as it currently stands provides a credible naturalistic explanation for life and how it evolves.

How life got started is especially problematic in this regard as – some kind of absurd fluke apart – the only available credible naturalistic mechanism (i.e. one based just on an appropriate mix of necessity, chance & time) for creating the kind of information required, i.e. natural selection, is not an explanatory option. Not that, for many evolutionary biologists, where it is available is natural selection now faring much better – especially I understand with regards to the many evolutionary issues thrown up by the so called ‘Cambrian Explosion’.

For me, the extent to which science should embrace intelligent design in response to this is a large and difficult issue; and I don’t think is a realistic option in the short to medium term. I do wish, however, that there was greater openness from the biology community as a whole on the now evident serious shortcomings in their theories for explaining life and how it evolves.

When physics came up against a similar issue – i.e. the apparent ‘fine tuning’ of the universe for life – it developed a number of naturalistic strategies to counter this; most notably multiverses and so on. Whatever you might think of these they at the very least constitute an open acknowledgment of the fine tuning issue.

I appreciate for evolutionary biologists in the US there is the added ‘culture wars’ dimension of whether biblical creationism should be taught alongside Darwinian evolution in schools. I cannot see how responding to this by way of being over defensive about the shortcomings in its theories, however, will in the long run do the standing of science in the wider community any favours.

"The notion of God as a chemist, reaching down with his mighty hand to splice the correct amino acids into the desired proteins, is hardly intellectually satisfying."

But whether something is "intellectually satisfying" isn't really the test, is it? That is no more valid than is rejection of the possibility of a creative intelligence on the basis of concluding that "no loving, all-powerful god would allow (insert favorite man's-inhumanity-to-man outrage/and-or distressing fact concerning the human condition)". Because thus we would impose human characteristics, values and intelligence upon an intelligence so superior to ours as to be beyond comprehension. It is an intelligence capable of creating not just us, but presumably - although not necessarily - an entire universe.

Once one concedes that life and the universe is the result of an intentional creative act of a superior intelligence (a possibility which must be conceded by every person who would aspire to intellectual honesty), then one must necessarily concede that the mind of that intelligence is incapable of being plumbed by humanity. We can't hope to understand the purposes or plans, or even whether something might be "good" or "bad". What is the brief, tiny spark of a human life - of all humanity - in comparison to the universe and timelessness? And how can we deny the existence of a creator merely because we think it "permits useless suffering", when we can't come within light years of perceiving the possible purposes for such, or whether it is, in light of inconceivable complexities, useless, or even suffering? Denying a creator because our pet hurdles don't appear to have been jumped is simultaneously arrogant and closed-minded.

The only appropriate response to the question of the creator is to stand in awe and humility.